Heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems have long been used in vehicles to help manage the thermal comfort of vehicle occupants, among other things. Such systems often employ convective heat transfer, where warm or cool air is made to flow within the vehicle cabin to affect the average temperature inside the cabin according to the desire of the occupants. Thermal elements have also been employed in vehicle seats to manage occupant comfort. For example, electrically heated seats include thermal elements than can conduct heat through seating surfaces when a seated passenger desires a warmer seating surface. In general, HVAC systems and seat-integrated thermal elements have developed separately with improvements typically focused on increased performance and/or efficiencies, ease of manufacturing or cost reduction of the independently operated and controlled components.